Racism on my mind

I've got racism on my writer's brain today. Have been reading Michelle Alexander's disturbing, The New Jim Crow - Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, watched part one of the new series about the abolitionists on PBS's American Experience, then all the hoopla around the brilliant film "Lincoln," and the awareness that I live in the nation's most segregated city, and the racist vitriol from some gun rights nuts who cannot believe the "black man" in the White House wants to limit access to assault rifles and huge ammo clips and are preparing for the uprising against the federal government...

yea, and on and on and on... Hard to get away from it these days.

Local writer Barbara J. Miner wrote a long piece in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Sunday Crossroads section entitled, Segregation and a tragic silence. The connection here between deeply embedded racism  and entrenched poverty spreading out from the city's northwest neighborhoods is beyond obvious; it's the plan, the intention, of far too many of our citizens around these parts (is it the Germans? the Slavic descendants? I have that blood in me and I know my people only too well).

Out of our minds, with guns blazing

Once again, it's hard not to write about the gun mania that has overtaken our politics. What is this about, really? What is it about this culture that has made getting as many of us armed and dangerous as possible something so essential to the feeling of cultural and ego-identity satisfaction, proclaiming rights not articulated in the Constitution as constitutional.

Let's be more honest than we are usually allowed: There really is no right to concealed or open carry of individual weapons anywhere in the Constitution - this is a figment of the fantasies of an amazingly successful and aggressive gun lobby known as the National Rifle Association.

Oh, and it is also an incredible distraction from what truly ails us as a culture. It's a way to stir up that mythical thing called 'the base,' making that 'base' feel good about themselves while all the drivers that are making life increasingly stressful and eroding its quality go unaddressed because certain people are benefiting rather lavishly from the status quo - from the increasing stress and suffering.

We cannot even have a mandatory 4 hours of training to get a concealed carry license. We cannot have this minute percentage of the hours required to drive a car in order to carry around, hidden from view, a lethal weapon that in the emotion of a bad moment could be used in very, very bad ways. Police officials are not pleased.

State Sen. Lena Taylor was the lone Democrat to join the Repubs on this one. So, Ms. Taylor, what's with that?!?!  Explain, please, because I was with you when you left the state earlier this year (bless you and the WI 14), but you have lost me now. Last June, you referred to guns as 'works of art,' and now you believe these works of art should not require actual training in how to use them. Put a paintbrush in just anyone's hands and see how many works of art actually appear. Any 'art' requires training. But let's also quit this inane NRA-pleasing hyperbole - guns are not a work of art. They are at best a form of sport, and at worst, well, you know, Gabby Giffords, for example, and then a lot of things in between.

Some progressives speculate that Taylor wants to run for state office and thinks this may be a path in that direction. If so, my heart is heavy. I suppose next will come campaign donations from the powerful NRA.

And this is what happens to our poor democracy. From the Uppity Wisconsin link above:

"In the most recent poll, done in May by a national polling firm for the Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort (WAVE), voters statewide opposed concealed carry by a 60%-32% margin. By almost 3 to 1 (60%-21%) they said they would feel less safe if concealed weapons were allowed in public, and by a 2 to 1 margin (48%-23%) they said they were less likely to support a candidate who backs concealed carry."

But you see, the opinions of voters and majorities like these simply do not have the same representative power in public office as the clout of special interests like the NRA - and Americans for Prosperity, and Karl Rove's American Crossroads, and Club for Growth, and the consortium of right-wing billionaires who are preparing for 2012 elections. If you care about our democracy, please read this NY Times article from the other day:

Outside Groups Eclipsing GOP as Hub of Campaigns

I try never to exaggerate, but this comprises the biggest threat to our constitutional democracy in my lifetime, and it has been brought to you in large part by our corporate bought Supreme Court justices, especially this Roberts/Alito/Scalia/Thomas era. You see, while everyone was focused on Roe vs Wade as these guys were being considered, the real agenda just passed us by - that what the right really wanted was a court that would give absolute rights to the power of money and large corporations.

Not unlike the way the gun rights issue has just been used and abused in our state. Manipulation of people's anxieties, fears, and prejudices is a very dangerous game, and it is right now being played masterfully by the extreme right wing.

If we want our democracy, we will have to struggle mighty hard to gain it back. I, for one, am getting tired of seeing my government in the hands of those who do not have the well-being of my state and its people at heart. It will be a long slog, but it starts with getting corporate money and unlimited funds from the richest 1% out of our politics.

The castle doctrine - or how we regress to lower forms of life

So this is among the priorities being debated in Madison right now, championed by, well, who else? the NRA-loving Republicans!

'Assembly to Take Up Castle Doctrine'

I swear, there must be people out there chomping at the bit to shoot somebody. The new laws just keep making it easier and easier, almost begging for it.

So somebody comes into your house uninvited, you blow 'em away, and then ask them what they're doing there. Presumably it will then be safe for you to do so.

I remember back in my childhood when a lawyer in my Tosa neighborhood accidentally shot the boy delivering his newspaper.  Folks were pretty traumatized.

But I fear we are losing the ability to be traumatized by our own cruelty or stupidity. Something is really wrong with us, with this culture, when we value the use of guns and the right to do violence more than then right to have decent work, a roof over our heads, decent education for all our kids, to be free of discrimination, to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and have good healthy food to eat.

Interestingly, a lot of these gun rights extremists are also among those who oppose things like climate science, the E.P.A., civil rights, voting rights for the poor and non-white people, quality education for all, a concern for the common good and the good of the commons. Who has taken over my culture? Give me back the one I'm losing, the one where we care about each other, where we are outraged by vast inequities and cruel discrimination, where violence is not the first response to our often unwarranted fears. You are making this world ugly and harsh!

Evolution of the human species does not necessarily mean progress in human compassion, social conscience, or a commitment to the common good and the good of the commons. Right now it feels like this culture is regressing to lower forms of life, as if we learned nothing from generations of war and hatred and discrimination and injustice and indifference to human rights. Something that began to knit us - in the advances in respect for human and civil rights over the past several decades - is now coming undone in the face of fierce resistance from those who feel threatened by those advances in human dignity and integrity.

Friends, we need a new culture. The one that creates concealed carry and the castle doctrine takes us in a terrifying direction. It must be dismantled and a new one created, one more appropriate for the real world challenges of this generation.